And So They Fall
by creepygirl13
Summary: It had to happen, sooner or later.


NOT a continuation of 54! This is set mostly in the first half of the series, and involves several examples of insanity and mental problems.

Enjoy.

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1. _Split the Mind_

Rachel was first. The first to break, to snap, to split in two. She was strong, so strong, and brave and beautiful and the last person you'd expect to go insane.

She couldn't handle it anymore. It wasn't the war, the blood, the lies and risks and pain that got her, though. It was herself. There was a certain...violence, terrible and unexhaustible, deep within her. It came out in screaming, wild bloodlust when she fought, and that stewed deep and horrid inside her.

So she broke. Snapped in two. Her mind couldn't take it, and so it split. Into three parts, specifically. Three personalities. Three pieces of a formerly whole mind.

Named differently, acted differently, but still somewhat Rachel.

Renee, Ramona and Rachel.

Renee, serious, logical, the only really lucid personality of the three.

Ramona, the little girl trapped inside the old woman that Rachel had become.

And Rachel, the darkness in her mind. Violent, rude, cruel, heartless--all these things and more was she.

And the real Rachel, the orginal, the strong and whole Rachel, retreated. They couldn't find her again.

2. _Forget the Name_

Tobias was second. Apperantly heartbroken after Rachel, he retreated into the forest.

Going wild, letting the hawk take over. The boy Tobias was forgotten in the back of the hawk's mind, overtaken by the hawk's instincts and vauge feelings.

Eventually, he abandoned his old meadow, and, like Rachel, they never found him-or what had become of him-again.

3. _Sane as a Madman_

Ax followed soon after. Marco, Jake and Cassie had wondered whether Andalites could lose their minds as humans could, and their question was answered.

Although not the picture of madness, Ax wasn't "all put together," as Cassie said(or "completely lost it," depending on who you asked). Formerly brilliant(by human standards, anyway), logical, curious, it was as if Ax's personality became...looser. Like a puzzle to which a few pieces are missing.

They supposed it was because of Tobias. Ax's only close friend, he vanished into the forest. It was only a few weeks after Tobias that they realized that Ax was different.

Somwhat more paranoid, terribly scattered, they only realized a real difference when he started to stutter. Not playing with sounds, as he would in a human morph, but stumbling over words in thought-speak. The first time, Cassie looked worridly at Jake. The second, Marco raised an eyebrow. The third, Jake asked if he were all right.

Cassie looked at Jake again, a look which said _no, of course he's not_.

And every day, his mind slipped a bit more.

4. _Wound Too Tight, it Snapped_

Marco went after Ax. Like Ax, you couldn't really see it. After all, he was already paranoid. Already jumpy and easily startled.

He didn't split into pieces, like Rachel, he didn't lose himself, like Tobias, and his mind didn't decay like Ax's had.

He _only_ grew more paranoid. He _only_ became so hair-triggered that he accidentally hit a teacher who tapped him lightly on the shoulder.

Not completely mad. But not completely sane or right, either.

5. _A Burden Too Heavy_

Jake went next. He'd already become so serious, so sad, so...leader-like. It wasn't hard for him to become more so. Sad, so sad, with the constant, terrible expression of a man three times his age. What had happened to his cousin and his friends terrified him, though he didn't show it.

Not at first.

Depression.

That was what others called it. Most people-counselors, his parents, other friends-thought it was typical. A phase, if you will. Not that they knew anything. Jake's own personality became steadily darker. His humor lessened, became blacker, his leadership suffered. His grades slipped, almost impossibly low. He got less sleep at night, and was rarely, if ever, happy or cheerful again.

He became, quite frankly, both sad and terrifying at once.

6. _A Guilt Too Great_

And Cassie was last. She visited Rachel day after day, trying to piece her mind back together, trying to bring the old Rachel back.

It didn't work.

She tried to help. Tried to help Marco with his incessant paranoia, Jake with his depression, Ax with his...whatever it was.

It didn't work. She couldn't help them. Guilty, she couldn't sleep at night. Guilty, she couldn't help anymore. Like Jake, her personality became steadily darker. She had been the heart, the morals, the emotions and hope of the Animorphs, and she couldn't anymore.

She just couldn't.

A sleepless night became many sleepless nights, moving steadily from a night when she just couldn't sleep to chronic insomnia. Soon, the light, perpetual shadows under her eyes became darker, more like a smudge of charcoal than just a darker tint of skin.

She'd given away too much of herself. And she couldn't get it back.

7._ When heroes fall_

_we all fall with them._

end

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Wow. This is quite possibly the weirdest thing I've ever written, barring only Tears and Darkness Overtaking. Second Animorphs fic ever.

I figure that they'd all go nuts or something eventually. Think about it, they're all fighting a secret war, and they're all teenagers for the duration of the series.

Since Rachel already had some mental problems in the first place, it wasn't a huge jump from that to MPD(it'd already kind of happened in the Separation).

I basically took what happened to Tobias in #54 and applied it to the fic. That's all.

Since Ax is an Andalite, and therefore his mind is probably on a very different wavelength from most humans, so PTSD or just plain losing it would probably look different in him than in any of the others.

Since Marco is paranoid already, it probably wouldn't be that hard to jump from useful paranioa to hair-triggering and the being-paranoid-about-everyone-and-everything-even-if-it's-a-dead-tree stage.

Jake was already kind of heading into depression, but now he's seriously suicidal. Not that hard to do, either.

And for Cassie? Insomnia seemed to suit her. She can't help because she's tried to help too much, that sort of thing.

On seven: I'm not really sure. I tried to do an epilouge, but it didn't work out the way I wanted it to.

Sorry I didn't update any of my multi-chapters, they'll(at least Beyond the World will) be updated soon enough.


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